The state Supreme Court
yesterday upheld a sweeping juvenile justice initiative that gives prosecutors
the discretion judges formerly had to select between juvenile or adult criminal
court for accused youths.

Overturning an appeals
court, the justices rejected the assertion of eight San Diego-area youths that
Proposition 21, adopted by California voters in March 2000, violates separation-of-powers
principles by effectively eliminating a judge’s full range of disposition
options for youthful offenders.

In a 56-page opinion,
Chief Justice Ronald George wrote that a prosecutor’s decision to file charges
against a minor in criminal court “is well within the established charging
authority of the executive branch” even though it may as a consequence limit a
judge’s options.

The court also rejected
due process and equal protection challenges, as well as a claim that
Proposition 21 violated the “single subject” constitutional mandate for
initiatives.

George wrote that the
proposition, which amends numerous gang statutes and other criminal laws,
covered the single subject of crime.

Initiative’s Purpose

“These provisions are
germane to the initiative’s common purpose of addressing gang-related and
juvenile crime,” George wrote.

Dissenting from the
separation-of-powers portion of the opinion, Justice Joyce L. Kennard wrote
that judges should retain their power to select between juvenile court, where
offenders can be sentenced to serve only up until they reach age 25, and
criminal court, where they could get life terms.

Giving the authority to
the executive branch leaves prosecutors with power “unrestrained by legislative
standards and susceptible to arbitrary exercise,” Kennard wrote.

Rising Crime

Proposition 21 was put
on the ballot with the sponsorship of ex-Gov. Pete Wilson, who said it was a
necessary step to combat a rising tide of ever-more brutal crimes committed by
juveniles as young as 14. The measure received the strong support of current
Gov. Gray Davis.

Opponents said the
measure was far too draconian, especially in its reduction of judicial
discretion.

The eight youths in the
case that went to the high court stand accused of brutal hate crimes against a
migrant farm worker. Officials said the defendants, ages 14 to 17 at the time,
threw rocks at the workers and fired pellet guns while subjecting the victims
to racial insults. One was left for dead.

The youths have been in
custody since 2000, when San Diego prosecutors exercised their new power to
file directly in adult court and avoid a judicial “fitness hearing”—the hearing
at which judges would determine whether youths were “fit” for juvenile court
disposition.

The Fourth District
Court of Appeal stopped proceedings from moving to adult court after ruling
that Proposition 21 violates the state Constitution’s separation-of-powers clause.

The state Supreme Court
heard arguments Dec. 5 in a hearing that was marked by the presence of
television cameras in the RonaldReaganStateBuilding courtroom. It was the
first time Supreme Court proceedings have been televised since 1995.

San Diego prosecutors hailed the
ruling. Anthony Lovett, a deputy district attorney in San DiegoCounty, called the initiative
a “political, social and moral” voter experiment that only time can gauge.

One attorney for the
youths, Charles Sevilla, said the decision was an “unfortunate result.”

“We shall now see how
the exercise of ... raw power affects the futures of thousands upon thousands
of juveniles in the years to come,” he said.

But Los Angeles District
Attorney Steve Cooley said his office would “proceed cautiously.”

“We will continue to
seek judicial review through fitness hearings on most of the discretionary
filings,” Cooley said in a prepared statement. “We intend to exercise our
discretion on the worst of the worst of these minors, however, and directly file
on them in adult court.”

For the most serious
violent crimes, such as murder and sexual assaults, Proposition 21 mandates
direct filing in adult criminal court, without discretion by either a
prosecutor or a judge, to use the juvenile court system.

Cooley said his office
directly filed on those minors but over the last year has sought review through
the juvenile court on the discretionary filings.

“The court declared the
vast majority of the minors to be unfit to be tried as juveniles and the cases
went on to adult court,” he said.

The Supreme Court in
recent years has ruled the other way in trying to find the balance between
prosecutors and judges. In the 1996 Romero decision, the court limited
the impact of the voter-approved Three-Strikes law and returned to judges the
power to strike a prior crime for sentencing purposes in the interests of
justice.

The court suggested
yesterday that judges may retain a similar power to reject criminal court
disposition for a given youth in the interests of justice.

Justices Carlos Moreno
and Kathryn Werdegar each authored separate concurring opinions focused on the
single-subject rule. Moreno said he agreed there
was a sufficient “functional relationship” between the various portions of
Proposition 21, but he warned:

“The less rigorously we
enforce the single-subject rule, the more we are compelled to rely on
implausible assumptions about voters’ understanding of a ballot measure’s
intricacies.”